


Happiness is just a teardrop away

by flappergirlsfolly



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Crack, Kidnapping, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 11:07:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2065827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flappergirlsfolly/pseuds/flappergirlsfolly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Tormund stood in the middle of his unit with the upstairs neighbour banging on their floor and making the light fitting jiggle, a weapons expo in the concrete yard and a sobbing teenager on the doorstep, he realised the only course of action. </p>
<p>Tormund Giantsbane was going to play fairy godmother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happiness is just a teardrop away

**Author's Note:**

> Another cracky idea from Psychology
> 
> I tried to make Tormund a bit like a combination of Bernard Black, Ron Swanson, suburban dad and ex-com, so let's see how this goes…!

Tormund Giantsbane was a pretty all right sort of guy, or so he liked to think. He hadn’t done any jobs for the last ten years at least (paid break ins or hired muscle), had politely refrained from smashing any cops or Thenns and the only cars he drove was his own or Mance’s, and even then, only when permissible (mostly). He’d even been on the wagon- none of the good stuff (leaving out the hash because that didn’t really count) and when he drank it was never to the point of blacking out.

No, Tormund was straight as an arrow, growing a beard, with his very own flat, job and enough cash shoved behind the cistern of the bog at home for another ink. (He wanted a soaring eagle above his arse, but Ygritte had almost pissed herself laughing when he told her- though he couldn’t think why)

All in all, he was pretty content with his life. Snow had set him up with an internet dating profile (the boy hadn’t let him put up the story of Shella the bear, which seemed like a shame, but he’d insisted on just leaving ‘Polite conversation’ in its place) and he had a meeting with a woman coming up.

That is, until the day that Jon Snow resigned.

* * *

“W’ll I don’t bloody know, do I?” Dalla grunted, around the cigarette pressed between her lips, “If ya that bloody bothered by it, email the guys an’ ask ‘em!”

“But I shouldn’t need to, that’s the point!” protested Jarl. “They should know that it’s the ultimate choice-“

Dalla spat the roll out of her mouth and glared at her sister’s lover. “I don’t give a fig whether La Roux sings at the super bowl or not, Jarl. No one cares.”

“But-“ “Stop trying to make it happen! It’s never going to happen!”

“You have no idea-“

From inside, there was a crash.

“Fucken hell- ORRELL! FOR FUCK’S SAKE, MAN, DON’T TRY AND CARRY THEM ALL AT ONCE!” Tormund roared, hammering on the kitchen door with his fist. “Bleeding fool…”

There was another sound of raucous destruction, before the door beside Tormund opened and the busboy’s head popped out.

“It’s not Orrell. It’s Ygritte.”

“What’s the matter now?”

The boy shrugged, frowning. "I think Jon resigned, and now she’s trying to kill him.”

“Ah, bloody hell…” Stomping on his smoke and leaving Jarl and Dalla to argue about their little hip phone things and baseball caps that Tormund didn’t understand but still irritated him and smashed his way inside.

True to Gendry’s word, Snow was backed up against the wall of the kitchen, holding one of Tormund’s frying pans in front of him, smacking away bits of food and cups and cutlery that Ygritte was throwing at him.

“…kill you, you traitorous bastard!”

“Listen- listen to me! I’m not leaving you, I’m leaving the job-“ his (admittedly shite) defense was cut off as she tossed a drinking glass at his head and he ducked to avoid it. In the doorway to his office, Mance was watching, irritated, while Orrell stood (unhelpfully) to Ygritte’s side, looking like a prized prick as he smiled.

“What’s going on here?” Tormund shouted, snatching a tomato from the air as it hurtled towards the waiter.

“He’s a dick, that’s what.” Ygritte spat.

“I’m not- urgh, my Dad’s going to let me work with my brother doing filing on the weekends and corporate work looks good on college applications- don’t throw that- and she thinks I’m batty which is funny because _I’m not the one throwing stuff!_ ”

“Batty? Batty? I don’t think you’re batty, I think you’re a dead man, Jon Snow!”

“We don’t want the likes of you round here.” Orrell piped up.

Tormund hit him.

“Okay, that’s enough of that.” Mance interrupted, kicking some shards of broken coffee cup across the kitchen tiles “Ygritte, go out back and calm down, Jon, it was good having you on board, but piss off because this is getting hazardous.” Nodding Jon scampered out of the room (casting the girl one last longing look that the diner’s staff had been forced to watch for months as he danced around her blatant pick up lines) while Orrell tried to assist Ygritte in walking to the freezer, before she slapped him across the face with a loaf of bread and stormed out of the kitchen door. “Clean this shit up!” Mance snapped at Gendry and Orrell, before disappearing into his office.

Calm slowly surfaced across the restaurant, and as far as Torumnd was concerned, that should have been that.

But it wasn’t.

* * *

By the time he got home that evening, carrying Ygritte’s girly ‘Bhutanese’ backpack that she’d abandoned earlier in the day, he was bone tired and only wanted to crack a beer and watch TV.

Fumbling with his key in the lock, the sound of his niece’s angry music thudded out of her bedroom and Tormund groaned.

Sure, the kids were a cute couple, and they obviously loved each other, but two displays of emotion in one day- shit, that was more than he could handle.

“Here.” He grunted tossing the bag into her darkened bedroom. His greeting was lost to the roaring music, but the flying bag caught her attention and she turned to look at him. By the light of the desk lamp, her tear-stained face seemed distorted and shrivelly, like a really wet suede shoe.

“Fuck off.”

“Right y’are.” He muttered, beginning to walk down the corridor, before an enraged scream tore its way from where he had come. He emerged back in her doorway just in time to see one of the steak knives from the kitchen whizz past and stick itself in one of the photos of the boy stuck to her corkboard.

“Ygritte!” he roared, pounding a fist on the front of her stereo a few times until it found the pause button and the music cut of. “Knives? In the house? What have I told you, girl?”

She glared back at him insolently for a long moment, before sullenly unhooking the notice board from the wall and stropping into the backyard where she set about finding her bow and quiver of arrows.

“No weaponry in the house, it’s not that hard…” he muttered, collapsing on the sofa and turning the volume of the television up to block out her angry shouts. He was still on his first bottle when somebody knocked on the front door.

_“Piss off!”_ There was an uncertain pause, and then more knocking. Groaning, he pulled himself up from the couch and opened the door.

The baby crow appeared agitated, like he might cry (good gods, not another blubby teenager) and looked up at Tormund with wide, pleading eyes. “Out back.” He grunted.

From the kitchen window, overlooking their small yard, a burst of bright flame flared against the night sky, accompanied by a bellow of anger. “Or maybe another day.” He added, closing the door in the kid’s face.

And then from the other side of the scratched, frosted glass, he burst into tears.

As Tormund stood in the middle of his unit with the upstairs neighbour banging on their floor and making the light fitting jiggle, a weapons expo in the concrete yard and a sobbing teenager on the doorstep, he realised the only course of action.

Tormund Giantsbane was going to play fairy godmother.

* * *

A few days later, he got up an hour early and stomped up the path of the kid’s house. It was a really big, posh, fucking wooden house, with flowers and shit and kids toys and shoes sprawled across the porch. 

He hammered on the door until it opened, revealing a short kid in baggy clothes. 

She looked up at him. 

He stared at her. 

She frowned, and he did not stop staring. 

She raised an eyebrow, and he copied. 

“Who’re you?” 

“Who are you?” 

“You look like a sandal fancier and beard haver.” 

“You look like a boy.” 

“MUM!” bellowed the kid, “THERE’S SOME FREAKY HAIRY FREAKY GUY AT THE DOOR AND I HATE HIM!” 

A woman with red hair appeared behind the girl, and smiled. 

“Hello there, can I help you?” 

“Where’s the kid?” he grunted, fumbling in his pockets for a lighter. 

“I’m sorry?” 

“The kid- you know, curly hairy pretty kid- Jon. I need to talk to him.” 

She seemed somewhat disconcerted, for some reason, and he waved his free hand about. “Diner kid! Y’know. Looks like tiny down there,” he pointed to the girl with elbow, he before straightening up and pulling out his lighter, “he broke up with my niece and I need to threaten to break his legs.” 

“I’ll be sure to pass that message on,” the lady confirmed, placing herself between him and the gap in the open doorway, “he won’t come near her again.” 

“No, he has to! She won’t stop breaking things and she melted the microwave!” 

“That’s so cool!” the kid piped up, and he grunted. 

“Mum, is everything okay?”

From somewhere behind him, two burly boys appeared, one holding a baseball bat and other holding a fire extinguisher, both eyeing him dubiously as the loomed. He snorted, and turned back to the woman, who was shooing the child into the house. 

“I’m not gonna attack anyone!” he shouted, throwing his hands up in the air, “I just want to tell the kid to get his crap back in order.” 

“I think you need to leave now, mate.” The kid with the bat told him. 

“Robb,” his mother reprimanded. 

“I’m just- look, will you tell him to go an apologise or twitter or whatever it is kids do?” 

“Get out.” The fire extinguisher boy intoned, hefting the red cylinder. 

“I’ve been in the fucking joint- you think you scare me?” he snapped, extending his hands to show his tattoos, “just tell him, okay?” 

“I’m calling the police if you’re not gone in thirty seconds.” The woman snapped. 

“Jesus!” he shouted, throwing his hands up in the air and stomping back down the path. When he had reached the gate, though, Jon’s voice called after him. 

“Tormund? What are you doing- _how do you know where I live?”_

“She melted the microwave, Jon!” he shouted at the sleep-addled hair beside the scary lady. “The microwave!” 

He didn’t even see the baseball bat coming, until it was too late. 

* * *

“This is stupid.”

“It’s not! She-“ 

“You got hit in the face for the microwave, I think you’ve stressed that enough.” Mance grumbled, looking around the DVD rental store with a scowl. “But I don’t see how this will help.” 

“It’s research!” 

“It’s honestly the dumbest thing-“ 

“Oh no, Mr Rayder.” The girl behind the counter chirped, returning with a stack of videos. “There’s a large entertainment culture angled towards set ups, and Mr Giantsbane obviously wants to avoid any more potential damage.” 

“Thanks, Marg.” 

“Enjoy, Mr Giantsbane!” she chirped. 

Except, of course, The Parent Trap had no bearing whatsoever because neither of them had handy identical twins (would she notice if he shoved Snow’s crazy baseball bat brother into her bedroom? Probably), he didn’t see what point Margaery had been trying to make with Mean Girls, and he was half way through season three of Sex and the City when he realised she was taking the piss. 

* * *

“What are you doing?” 

“What do you think I’m going to do?” 

“I don’t know, but you’re in my room and it’s fucking creepy.” 

“I’m your uncle!” 

“It’s weird.” 

“Shut up.” 

From where she lay on her duvet, glaring at him suspiciously he could see the book in her hands- homework? Biology. Disgusting. 

“So you’re just going to sit there and stare at me?” 

“No. Look, you’re going through a sensitive time-“ 

“Get out.” 

“Just…! Okay?” She rolled her eyes and nodded for him to continue.  “But I reckon you should talk to your boy.” 

“I’ll talk to him, alright.” 

He blinked, sitting back in her desk chair, “I was expecting more of a-“ 

“I’ll talk to him, and then I’ll chop his balls off.” She declared, yanking the bread knife from under her pillow. 

“That’s not- look, have you thought about how you really feel about him?” 

She paused and then nodded. “Murderey.” 

“No! You were throwing shit at him in the kitchen that day, but you didn’t hit him- I’ve seen you slip a shaft into a rabbit’s eye from two hundred feet and knock that wanker Orrell’s hat off with an apple from across the street! If you’d really have wanted to hurt him, you would have!” 

“That’s a good point, Uncle Tormund. Now I want to throw something at _you_.” 

“Sweet mother of- _put down that bread knife!”_

* * *

Summer solstice was his breaking point. 

The annual carnival had swung around again, and despite the fact that she was old enough to go by herself, Tormund and Ygritte had been going every year since she was a little girl. (They didn’t really talk about it. Or talk while there. They just sort of went and ate fairy floss and came home and went into separate rooms. They weren’t sissies.) 

She finally emerged out of her bedroom in her Black Widow cosplay trousers, green vest and sleeveless denim jacket. 

“The fuck you wearing?” he grunted in alarm. 

“Clothes.” She snapped back at him. 

“You know what Charlotte says about women who-“ 

She’d turned off the television before he could continue (Carrie and Aidan’s affair looked like it was finally about to end- god damn it to all hell, Margaery freaking Tyrell) and thrown his shoes at him before stomping outside to wait. 

So off they had set (in silence) him smoking and her clomping in those massive boots, until (good gods) Orrell had appeared out of nowhere. 

He didn’t even go away by himself. He followed Ygritte around like a mooning puppy, chatting at her about his life and what he thought about her and- 

“ARGH!” Tormund shouted, lashing out and punching a poster stand. 

Ygritte and Orrell were staring at him when he turned back. He clenched his jaw and flexed his muscles, the tats stretching and contorting. Ygritte kept staring, while Orrell shrank back. At least there was that. 

“Prat with a tiny cock…” he muttered.  He leaned against a nearby telephone pole with folded arms, watching as the little shit attempted to win her a stuffed toy (his niece won her own damn teddy bears) and kept missing. 

When he saw Jon Snow tentatively waving a hand at him, from where he stood on the fringes of his surprisingly violent family, he flashed him a closed-mouth smile (since he and Ygritte had broken up, he’d been demoted from full-teeth) and that should have ended there except that it didn’t. 

Of course it didn’t. 

Nothing ever did. 

“Thenns.” He growled, pushing himself off the pole. “I fucking hate Thenns.” 

“Tormund!” Styr goaded, grinning his weird, lipless smile (still less ugly than Orrell) and extending his arms. “What’s a fucker like you doin’ round here, ey?” 

“Protecting the civilians from asshats like you.” 

“You think you can take us?” 

Three more eggheads appeared at Styr’s side, and Tormund paused. 

Oh well. If he fucked a bear, he could fuck up four Thenns at a summer fun fair. He was Tormund Giantsbane. He did that. 

* * *

Being dragged off by the handily nearby local police chief Eddard Stark was distressing to say the least. 

Not quite as distressing as spying Ygritte and Jon catching each other’s eyes across the carnival-road, sharing a moment of hormonal staring, before his niece impulsively grabbed the front of Orrell’s shirt, and dragging their faces together. 

* * *

“You know, I’ve only cried once in my life.” He noted later to the Sargent, who had been watched the exchange with a similar distress, “A heroin addict wearing a sandwich costume outside Quiznos stabbed me when I was five. But I almost did again when that _famed moron_ stuck his tongue down my niece’s neck.” 

Ned Stark and his constable, Jory, watched him flinging himself in agitation against the holding cell bars as they signed off on his release. 

“He does realise that as long as he’s in here, the girl and the _‘moron’_ are alone together in his house.” Jory muttered, raising his fingers in quotation marks. 

Tormund let out a wail and gnashed his teeth, and rattled the bars of the door in horror. 

* * *

Pulling the black balaclava down over his face and tucking his beard out of sight, Tormund cracked his knuckles and slid open the door of Mance’s white minivan.

Jogging across the street, he hastened to the group of teenaged boys (eyeing him suspiciously), grabbed Jon Snow by the back of his t-shirt and began pulling him back across the road. 

“Um, what are you doing?” the fat friend asked uncertainly. 

“That’s not helpful!” Snow snapped, squirming. 

Seeming to wake up to the situation, his friends began to shout and chase after them, but he came to a stop and jabbed a finger at them. 

“This is for your friend’s own good.” He garbled, his long unused, but not forgotten Scottish disguise creaking from his throat. 

Jon stopped trying to break free. “Tormund?” 

He faltered. 

“Ach, nope. Laddie.” 

“Oh my god, Tormund. What the hell are you doing?” 

“I- shut up!” Jon yelped as he was tossed into the back of the van, the vehicle speeding off, leaving his strange friends standing in the middle of the road. 

* * *

“This is going to work, because I am so sick of this.” She snarled, checking the belt trussing Jon to a shelf support in the diner’s freezer. 

“You’re so sick of kidnapping teenagers and tying them to smoked hams?” he snapped. “Do you do this a lot?” 

“I’m not tying you to a ham. I need to cook that.” 

“My sister has a clarinet concert so I need to be home by three. Will this be done by then?” 

“Enough from you.” He muttered, stretching a piece of duct tape over the kid’s face. He made a noise of exasperation from inside his throat, shooting him a frustrated glare. Tormund ignored him and darted into the dining area, hearing the door close as Ygritte shuffled in, followed closely by the mushroom of mankind. 

“You need to go to the freezer.” He announced, pausing to shove Orrell in the chest so he fell backward. “Not you.” 

“Why?” she asked, raising a skeptical brow. 

“It’s an emergency.” 

“I’m a doctor.” Called an old man from one of the booths. 

“Do I need to come up with an explanation for everything?” he whined, ignoring the man and snapping his fingers as he thought. “You need to go biologise an urgent starfish in the freezer.” 

“A what?” 

“Or it’s going to explode. Of mad cow disease.” 

“That doesn’t make you explode.” She replied, as Orell clambered to his feet, attempting to be casual as he brushed himself down.

“It’s very complicated and only you will know how to fix it.” 

“I was in the FBI for fifty years, I’m sure I can help.” The woman sitting with the doctor called. 

“It’s just a… biology emergency! Look, I don’t know what I’m talking about, I worked as a bootlegger instead of going to school as a child, just go!” 

“I’m also a qualified marine biologist.” The old guy called. “I’m getting real sick of your shit.” He snapped at the pair, before turning back to Ygritte imploringly. Her ginger eyebrows were almost in her hairline, but she nodded and stomped into the kitchen anyway. “Wait outside.” He muttered, seizing Orell by the front of his hoodie and tossing him onto the sidewalk. 

Ghosting behind his niece, he watched her walk into the freezer and pause, giving him enough time to- 

“TORMUND, WHAT THE HELL?” she screamed, hammering on the freezer door. 

“It’s for your own good! Talk it out, feel the love or whatever it is you do.” 

“WITH WHO?” she bellowed. 

From behind him, somebody cleared his throat. 

“How the fuck did you get out?” he snapped. 

“Gendry let me go.” He shrugged. The busboy beside him nodded. 

“Get in there, for god’s sake- what did I kidnap you for if you’re just going to stand there.” Slamming the door behind the struggling Jon Snow, he paused before sending Gendry in after him. “You too. Make sure they don’t do any horizontal folk dancing.” 

There was a burst of horrified wails from inside the freezer, but Tormund just smiled to himself. 

* * *

“Are you Tormund Giantsbane?” He looked up from the ledger he and Mance were leaning over to see a girl with lots of dark red hair stomping toward him. Behind him, the weird little skinny kid followed, as well as the two crazy teenaged boys. 

T ormund quickly pointed to Mance.

The girl ignored this and drew herself up to her full height (she was rather tall), a canine expression of rage contorting her features as fury and tension swelled in the room. “Sam said that it was you who made my brother miss my concert!” she stormed, raising a clarinet case above her head. He snorted. 

“It’s all for the greater good… what are you doing with that-“ 

* * *

Tormund Giantsbane woke up on the floor of the diner’s kitchen, his niece holding a packet of frozen peas to his forehead. 

“I was going to be really angry with you, and smash the season six DVD before you got a chance to watch it, but I’m not going to do that.” 

He groaned, and looked at her questioningly. 

“ You got knocked out by a gi-irl, you got knocked out by a gi-irl,” she began to chant, “you got knocked out by a gi-irl,” Mance joined in from the office door, and Gendy chimed in by taking a wooden spoon to the soup pot and clanging along. _“You got knocked out by a gi-irl, you got knocked out by a gi-irl.”_

Tormund let out a gurgle, and slumped his head back on the floor in defeat. 

* * *

He took Ygritte out to lunch by way of an apology a week later. Not only was he forced to eat in a place that did not serve red meat until after five in the evening, but was also ‘obligated’ to allow her to talk about whatever she wanted- which is why he felt like his ears were bleeding as she recounted every single episode ever of Parks and Recreation in a detail so excruciating it felt like flaying. 

“And then Ann looks around Leslie’s house totally horrified, because there’s stuff everywhere, like a weird-ass hoarder nest-“ 

“Oh… hello there.” 

The police chief and the lawyer stood with their sea of offspring, loitering between the tables as the waitress slouching over a stack of menus, tapping her foot impatiently. 

Both he and Ygritte sprang defensively to their feet, Tormund raising his palms into the air. 

“I formally declare that I’m not going to cause physical or psychological harm to any of your children or siblings while we’re in the same room.” He recited, inching away from the clarinet girl, who glared at him. The chiseled Ned Stark tightened his jaw, his wife folding her arms imposingly, while the two boys did their best job of looming imposingly. Silence spanned for a painful minute and he was about to speak when- 

“Hi Ygritte.” Jon greeted politely. 

“Hello Jon.” She responded cordially. 

There was half a second of nothing before they were suddenly all tangled up in each other, snogging as though they’d not been standing three meters apart an eye blink ago. 

The family doubled back in surprise, and Tormund gaped. 

“What the fuck?” he snapped weakly, when they broke apart. “I almost got myself killed three times, the microwave got melted and I had to watch you suck the face of the spawn of Satan’s butt crack’s and you two just- make up? Without even talking?” 

They were still wrapped in each other’s arms, paused to exchanged a thoughtful glance, and nodded. 

Tormund Giantsbane threw himself down in his chair and began to sob into his tattooed hands.

 

 

_And…_

He looked at the expectant faces standing on the dance floor, spotting Arya and Gendry holding hands. 

“Weird.” He muttered, before clearing his throat. “As acting father of bride I was told I had to make a speech, so here it is: _I fucking told you so.”_

He dropped the microphone and stomped away from the little stage, to a smattering of uncertain applause. 

Once outside and safely on his own, he lit a cigar and sighed to himself in contentment. 

All was right with the world.


End file.
